I have to talk here.
The service offered by smartsteem is top Quality, but that is besides the point.
To have it on top IS better because You can see it is advertising.
The other two? One is garbage. The other is fraud. And the Two of them try to pass as legit. Plain and simple.
I still think we need another frontend. Witness-stuff belongs in an area for witnesses. Developers-stuff in an area for developers. News from Steemit.Inc in a news-area. Promoted posts under promoted. Why not highlighting bot-promoted posts with a different colour? So everyone can see at first sight it is promoted.
Thats actually a great idea. But it would finish the "no ads" kinda publicity steemit has right now. Even if that is only a half truth.
That this is only a half true or at least developing this way... that's the reason for waving flags here! (I did not flag @themarkymark, I hate flagging, but I guess you understand what I mean.) My opinion about it isn't extreme. I just want a solution that calms down the fighting. And I think there could be solutions.
Oh, indeed. I think this is actually an interesting proposal: https://steemit.com/steemit/@yabapmatt/what-if-we-got-rid-of-the-trending-page
We should get rid of the whole interface. It doesn't reflect a fast growing community anymore. It was okay, when the community was small. It doesn't fit anymore.